Worth keeping an eye on DeFi 

There is no doubt that summer saw an exceptional boom in interest in Decentralized Finance (DeFi). Google Trends shows that the people searching for DeFi hit its peak in the last week of August and first week of September. Since then, searches have dropped off by 62%. 

But does that mean interest in DeFi protocols has tailed off? Not according to the amount of capital continuously being pumped into such protocols. The current figure, according to DeFi Pulse, stands at $11.02bn. What that means is that interest and the use of DeFi platforms continues to grow, but seemingly without the crazy hype from the summer. To me that is not necessarily a bad thing. It is healthy that we see the end of the buzz but interest continues, as it highlights and is indicative of the genuine value that the crypto community places on DeFi. Or at least, some of the crypto community, as labelling such a group as homogenous would be inaccurate! 

Exchanges should keep supporting projects that have garnered investor interest. At eToro we recently announced our support of Flare, with those holding XRP(XRP-X) on our investment platform or crypto exchange to be included in the network’s snapshot, determining how many Spark tokens they will receive. 

JPM could be the initiator in the crypto bank race 

Last week J.P. Morgan’s (JPM) global head of wholesale payments Takis Georgakopoulos, said that the firm is about to use its own cryptocurrency for a commercial transaction. 

Whilst this news is not likely to set many in the crypto community alight, most of whom are not going to use the bank’s own cryptoasset the JPM Coin, it still provides an exciting opportunity for the future. 

This new cryptoasset could act as a gateway into the sector. J.P. Morgan clients could use such a token and then potentially look to take it onto an exchange and trade into other coins.

It could also prove to be the initiator for other banks and large scale financial institutions to start, continue, or speed up their own crypto and blockchain operations. It is positive to see that, having made a 180, J.P. Morgan and other iconic stalwarts of the current economic system are appreciating the whole host of benefits blockchain and crypto can bring to businesses.